Brose's Blog Page of Burnination

So I got this email today from Hotmail saying that my account will be upgraded to a 250 megabyte inbox with the ability to send attachments up to 10 megabytes. (I'm sure most, if not all of you, received such an email recently)

Hm...let's think about this for just a moment here.

I'm sure the people at Hotmail decided that because we were such loyal users of their service, they decided to reward their users by upgrading all their accounts.

Yeah, that must be it.

Gmail? *gasp* We know nothing about that!

Yahoo upgraded their accounts too? What a coincidence!

Well, competitive markets do have their benefits to the consumers here and there, I guess this is one example...

So the Federal Election is over, and the Liberals won with a minority government, albeit a larger minority government than most expected. I think between the Liberals and NDP, they have just enough seats to have majority vote. And considering that Conservatives and the Bloc hardly ever agree, it seems that Paul Martin will be able to be PM for another 4, 5 years providing he keeps Jack Layton relatively happy. It'll be an interesting 4 years for the federal government, now that they actually require some cooperation between parties. Hopefully this'll be better for us citizens, he he.

(Btw, I did not vote yesterday, didn't really know who to vote for. Well, I didn't want to vote Conservative, but Liberal was meh, and anything else was kind of a wasted vote...)

Hey, does anyone know what happens if the Party Leader didn't win his/her riding but his/her party won the election? It'll be pretty funny I'd think...Does the Party Leader like, not become PM? (Ninja'd!!!)

Whee! Week is pretty much over, since all I have left are 3 lectures and a problem session tomorrow. No work tonight, just relax and probably play some SC at Paul's while mocking them working on their CS assignment, muhahahahahaha. (insert Dancing Mad)

The past weekend was...interesting, to put it in one way.

Went to get cookie mix to make some cookies for the CCF Coffeehouse after classes on Friday. It was my first time making cookies, but then turned out to be alright. (Well, the people ate all of them ;)

After CCF was hockey, however, Paul received an unintentional high-stick and injured his right eye. He was taken to the hospital and proceeded to wait like, 5, 6 hours in the emergency room (which was kinda expected). His car was also broken into sometime that night as well...suxxors. You can go to Paul's blog for more details.

So most of the weekend I tried to spend time w/ Paul, just to see that he's doing alright. But between playing some more Starcraft missions (finished the Terran campaign, mass Marines is the way to go), watching movies w/ Paul and watching the CCF ice hockey team get their first win of the season (on the last game of the season), being the geek that I am, I still finished my homework =P. What I didn't get to do was kind of study for today's quiz for Act Sci 232, but the assignment I finished was for 232, so it should be okay...

Anywho, long weekend is a-coming, and I know there'd be a D20 game, probably on Saturday. I'm not sure about who I'll watch Spider-Man 2 with, 'cause I'm pretty sure my Mom will want to watch it as well. Also depends on when you guys go and see it, 'cause I'm probably not back until late Wednesday night. But besides the D20 game, who wants to have a little get-together to play stuff? Maybe on Friday I'm thinking...just a suggestion, he he.

Anyone else paying attention to Euro 2004? That tourney's been match after match of upsets, heh.

Well, I guess that's it for now...End Communication. *crosses arms

Wow...yesterday was totally like...high school or something.

Went to class in the morning, got home early afternoon. Had nothing to do, so I proceeded to have lunch (since I was hungry and stuff).

Watched 2 episodes of Family Guy while eating lunch.

Was tired after lunch, napped for 2 1/2 hours.

Woke up, watched a little bit of TV, surfed the web for a couple hours, then I had a slight headache due to the cold I still have from last Friday's "hockey in the rain" thingy. So I slept from 9:30 or so last night till now, it says 8:30am Thursday on my Windows clock.

Such a "good" use of time, such a "high school" use of time...

(Had I not been sick, I probably would've been playing Diablo or Starcraft until I was tired enough to sleep)

(I did do something constructive last night though, I learned a bit about Google's advanced searching operators as well as planned for my last 4 school terms)

Onto the more interesting stuff (i.e. gaming):

So I caught Darbha online last night or the night before last, and he says that he'll be back in Canada by August 6th. So that's good, because I'm done Finals by August 13th (a Friday! Ooooooooo....), and I probably don't have to start working until after Labour Day. Thus, the week of August 16 - 20 (Monday - Friday) would be a good choice to have a get-together of sorts.

Hm, I just realized that my Aunt and 2 small cousins may still be at our house during that week, I'll have to double-check times with my Mom to make sure I can host this thing...

Anyway, I'd try to stay in 'sauga as long as possible anyway, so I'd probably still be here the week of August 23 - 27. However, I don't know if Darbha has to go back to Mac for training or whatever else by then...

But, the main point is that, as I've mentioned in a comment on Bao's Blog, I want to host a Smash Tournament of sorts. Well, the party won't be all Smash (could be, but probably won't be), but the main focus would be a tournament. Of course, we'd have a tournament for Old Smash and a tournament for New Smash, no need to discriminate, he he. We can even do singles and teams as well (though I don't know if we have enough balanced teams to warrant a tournament for it...). Maybe I'll throw in some "prize" for the tournament to ignite incentive =P. I'll probably try to make it a sleepover thing as well, I'm sure my Mom would be fine with it as long as it doesn't conflict with her schedules (hence having this on a weekday(s))

Hm, I also just realized that by having this on a weekday, I'll no-jump guys like Wen and Jason, who have work. Hmm...this thing needs some scheduling conflict management...oh well...

But the point of this post is to bring this up and see reactions, so if you're interested in this idea and such, reply in the form of a comment, or msg me, or something.

Smashy Smashy, Rock Rock On! (There are no playsets and toys! [Unfortunate.])

Me: Two boxes of Kraft Dinner
Calc prof: Kraft Dinner Deluxe

The title of the post was actually asked by my Calculus 3 prof, when he was handing out prizes to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place students for midterm results. He asked the question, and before I can shout out my answer, he answered it already. =P

Actually, my Calc prof is pretty cool IMO, he's some old British looking dude with a British accent, so throughout his years he's probably developed a well seasoned British wit (or perhaps it's dry humour). At first he told the class that the midterm average was less than 10%, 'cause he said before the midterm anyone not in AMath would get 0. Heh, looked awfully serious, probably would've been fooled if not for the impossibility of the reasoning. Then he handed out midterms. Then some people didn't get theirs back. So when people asked about it (he was about to start the lecture), he was like "Oh yeah! I forgot we have another pile here." He did that 2 more times (so a total of 4 different piles, each successive pile had better marks than the previous ones, so to speak). I thought it was kind of amusing, and it was a good usage of lecture time, he he (we spent about 30 minutes doing this).

For those who don't frequent Strong Bad's Email at Homestarrunner.com, you should probably see this email to fully understand my next paragraphs or so. I also highly recommend this other email as well.

I found both "Dangeresque" emails to be quite hilarious. I dunno, "from where"/totally preposterous type of animation/movies just gets me laughing. So I was actually thinking that it'd be a good idea if we tried to film something like "Dangeresque" in real life. It doesn't have to follow that kind of plot, but the premise would be like, cheesy props, outrageous situations, blatant cliches, and so forth. I think it's just fun as a side project, but I must say that my creative writing absolutely sucks, so in order to get this going we'd probably need someone like Darbha or Sina to write the general plotline. But an interesting concept (at least to me) nevertheless.

Would anyone be interested in something like this? (in fact I was part of an incomplete CCF movie, not totally "from where", but it's semi-from where, since we were trying to convey a message) It could be say, a summer project (not this summer though, too late to co-ordinate and too lazy). An alternative to making a real life movie would be to do it like the Brothers Chaps and just Flash or something like it to animate. I think it works best in a movie/anime, not a comic/manga (although stuff like 8-bit theater has its unique merits...)

Oh yeah, Canada Day is on a Thursday next week, but 1 of my 3 lectures on Friday is already cancelled, and another one may as well. So it's looking like that I might just come back into 'sauga for a 5 day weekend, who wants to do stuff?

A tested an true equation.

It's convocation week, so last night at CCF got to see some grads again, which was really good. Usual CCF timeline, 1 hour of loitering in the room after CCF finished (highlights include cheese and crackers and someone getting caked in the face). Then off to Mel's for food. Had the Penne Carbonerra, which was good, and very filling. After Mel's we proceeded to get people for hockey, despite the signs of upcoming rain. So hockey was played for about an hour and a half, we were kind of forced to stop by the rain. But overall a really great game, final was probably 5-4 or something like that.

I found this to be very amusing. It's more of D&D 2nd edition joke, but still...

Going to go back to 'sauga later on today, probably start the trip around 2 or something. Might go game shopping and spend some $$$ like I intend to. I'm very interested in the classic NES GBA, looks so cool! Might get a new PS2...depends if Sony can fix mine for free or not. I should probably call them.

Should head over to convocation soon...

Die, die again.

That was pretty much the philosophy that was used when I was questing through Hell A2 and A3 with Jia last night. We had our two sorcs, and, together with a necro and druid for A2 and just he necro for A3, we slowly but surely (being very stubborn about it) inched our way through the quests. We got wps from either Jia's or the necro's other characters, or else the ordeal probably would've taken much longer. The epitome of the ghettoness of the questing was when we had to help the necro gather an army in A1 (twice), just so that we can kill Toorc Icefist (which was fire and ice immune, and neither my or Jia's sorc had killable lightning skills). So Toorc fell to about 10 skeletons and Fallen with two sorcs chipping away at his life using 1-80 Lightning and Chain Lightning. =P

By time we got to A4 I really didn't feel like anymore of this ghetto stuff, so I proceeded to leech old mf stuff off of Jia and run nightmare Meph a few times. Got myself a better helmet through that, heh. It all begins again, starting mf on nm Meph, slowly moving towards Hell meph (maybe when I get some more life and mana...).

Whee, midterm week is over, and I think overall I did alright this week (didn't do as well as expected on Stats midterm, but that was handed back this week ;) Which was primarily the reason why I played so much D2X last night.

Will be back this weekend sometime on Saturday, since it's Father's Day. Don't know about schedule when I'm in 'sauga though. And it seems that there'd be a break in the "let's all go to DB's" anyway, which is a good thing.

Woot, gonna see some old folks at CCF tonight, since they're back for convo and all. Should be fun fun.

Oh yeah, that one source I found that previously said there might be more of FMP Fumoffu updated; the rumored 2nd season was just a re-run, darn. :( I guess I'll just have to settle with the 1st season, oh well...

Should be looking into places to live in Ottawa very soon, once I have my working address confirmed. Anyone got leads for me? =P

Rock rock on. Over and out.

Week of midterms (well, more like 2 midterms, a quiz, and a lab) is almost over, I just have to study for Econ tonight and tomorrow morning. The concepts aren't that difficult, it's just that I need to read over the text and remember everything. Shouldn't be too bad though...

Lakers got totally owned last night yet again. I remember the commentator saying "You get this idea that if the Lakers and Pistons played 10 more games, the Lakers would not win a single one." I concur. Mad props to Detroit, they played awesome defense and we know you win Championships with defense. But I just saw a lack of effort in some of the Lakers, and their overall weak bench. Malone couldn't play 'cause of injuries, and Payton was a non-factor for the whole series. Lakers will have some serious re-building to do in the years to come, 'cause Shaq ain't got many years left in him (before he starts getting dominated).

Officially matched with job in Ottawa, so that's good =P

Getting back into Diablo 2 lately, leveling after 20 (from what I've heard from Jia until 80 or so) is infinitely faster. I went from level 25, 26 or so to level 60 last night, played for maybe 4 hours, all from Baal runs. In Normal I found a good string where a lvl 70 killed everything, including Baal (lvl 70 made game so no quest completion, heh). In Nightmare I ran Baal with Jia, we did maybe 5, 6 runs, fighting our way through Worldstone 2 to Throne of Destruction, and left after killing Lester. Got at least 2-3 levels each run. So much more faster...

So overall in 1.10 you can get a character to lvl 70 probably in a day, if you play through normal until act 3 and get rushed and do Baal runs for normal and nightmare. So in a way Blizzard's attempt to keep people playing this game by making end leveling harder is kind of counter-productive. Why spend a day getting a level with my lvl 80 character when I can make another lvl 70 character on a build I want to try out? But since there are so much more elite uniques, MF-ing kind of keeps you going, if you want all that good stuff.

With regards to the topic title, in recent gatherings Jia/Rama's "bread sandwich" somehow manages to be brought up sometime during the gathering (for those of you who don't know, a bread sandwich is a slice of bread between 2 slices of bread). I just don't see it working, even with Jia's Quiznos'd "toasted bread sandwich" (a slice of bread between 2 slices of toast). Personally, I'd much rather eat 3 slices of bread with butter than eat a bread sandwich with butter.

Convocation this week, depending on what time it is, I might attend. If it's too late on Saturday I might not go, since I want to be back in 'sauga for Father's Day.

Have several points in today's update, I'll just do this in flow of ideas rather than flow of time (chronological).

Hamburger vs Steak

Today in Act Sci 371, we finished up a chapter that took about a week and a bit to cover. And the conclusion was that one method was superior to all the rest that were introduced in the chapter. This was not the first time something like this has come up in a course. I've noticed this in courses here and there, usually in math or math-related courses.

So I was thinking: Why did we learn all those other methods when they were inferior in the first place? If we just stuck with the good method, we could have learned other topics in the course. Well, there are probably reasons for learning all the different methods, I guess I can't think of a good one right now, heh.

He/She is not an Ironne (eye-ron)

I was thinking about my co-op position, and it's rather ironic. Firstly, I applied to that Ottawa job because it was the last posting, and I figured I might as well use up some applications. Had it been in an earlier posting I wouldn't have applied, since I wanted to stay close to home if possible.

Secondly, because I got all those other interviews for jobs in Toronto and Waterloo, I didn't really try all that hard at the interview for the Ottawa job. In fact, that interview I thought was my weakest performance out of them all.

So it was rather surprising to find that I got the Offer from CRA. I'm not complaining, but I just found it interesting how things worked out.

Coincidentally, Simon is also going to Ottawa for the next term, so I'll have someone I know there, yay!

It's All About The Improv

I had an Act Sci quiz today. I didn't really feel like studying too much for it, 'cause I have Calc to study for tonight, as well as Stats Lab to prepare for, and Econ midterm on Thursday as well.

So, I studied for maybe an hour or so (the quizzes are cumulative in material), and then I figured I'll leave the rest upon intuition and problem solving, even though the prof said the quiz was going to be harder than the previous two (since the avg was high for the previous quizzes).

Altogether it worked out alright though, I managed to finish the quiz, and got half-decent answers out of them too. Good ol' intuition... (Although I know full well that it can only take me so far, which is why I'm going to study for Calc and Stats and Econ. Another reason was because we get to drop 1 quiz out of the 6 we write, so if I got owned on this quiz, I still have the option of dropping it)

D20 Gathering Stuffies

D20 session was pretty good, this one was like the opposite of the 1st mission, next to no combat. I think it's okay if there isn't much combat, but I think there was a bit too much improv going on. Well, that's mainly due to the circumstances of the game. Alan had to leave early as it is, and we started like an hour late. So I guess my suggestion to the DMs (and any future DM) would be to have advancement of campaign plot high on the priority list of each and every mission. That way, you don't have to skip parts of the mission you worked hard on and thought out. What's the point of planning if you're going to improv half the mission anyway?

I'm not saying improv is bad, it's good, gives the mission more flexibility and players some freedom in what they can do. But I think the improv should take up less than 20% of any mission, 'cause what ends up happening is you'd have two or three groups of people at different places doing different things with one or two characters doing nothing at all during the improv. Overall it makes the mission more chaotic and less coherent.

Before and after the D20 game we played Melee, which was fun as usual. Dinner was delicious, as we were treated to Meatloaf and Loblaws Chicken. I guess it's the Chinese kicking in after dinner, I felt obliged to help clean the dishes (i.e. load the dishwasher), since I mooched a meal for free (a more or less homecooked meal, at that). Meh, didn't miss much doing it, as the other guys were just deciding what movie to watch (consented on True Lies).

Didn't really feel like watching True Lies, so I went to play Mao with Jia and Duy. Vinh wanted to play Settlers when I asked about the weird board set up. So I ended up playing both games simultaneously, which was an interesting experience. For Settlers I pretty much rolled, see if I can build anything, if not, then done. Vinh pretty much did the same thing. So the Settlers game was very boring, actually. There was absolutely no trading, so the game boiled down to whom the dice rolls favoured. Settlers is definitely not a 2 player game (there is a 2 player version card game of Settlers though). Vinh won the Settlers game as he build the longest road first. I had 6 points on the board but would've had largest army plus a VP card in my hand, so didn't lose by too much. Luckily Mao rules weren't that confusing yet by the time I lost the Settlers game, so I wasn't totally lost. Mao is a very interesting game, I just never bother to think of rules ahead of time. Probably can make it more interesting/confusing if I did though, meh.

I guess this post is long enough as is...

Ranking results are out, and well, I got 1 Offer and 5 Ranked. So that means I have a job! Woo hoo!

The only downside to the Offer is that the job's in Ottawa, so that means I'll be away from my family and like, 99.9% of my friends for the most part during the co-op term. At first I wasn't too keen on it, wondering if I should live more dangerously and hope for matches via the Ranked jobs. However, upon further analysis, I'd much rather take the Ottawa job than get ninja'd by the CECS matching algorithm (I don't even know if they use one). On the flipside, I'll finally get Act Sci job experience, and I figure with all the free time I'll have in Ottawa, I can finally work into my backlog of RPGs. If WoW or something like that comes out by then I'll most probably be playing that as well, to keep in touch and such.

So all in all, I finally got worth out of that co-op fee. It's a start, and maybe w/ the experience and more SoA exams I can get a job closer to home next term.

Last night we were playing C-league hockey again, but for various reasons half the team couldn't make it, so we had a goalie and 4 players. Since the game format is 3 on 3, we had 1 person available to shift any given time. The other team had about 6. Needless to say, we were pretty darn tired at the end, and we lost the game 14-7. It's alright due to the handicap, but I think we could've won the game if we all played w/ less mistakes and had some energy at the end of the game (I know I cost our team at least 3 goals, one of which was because I was too fatigued to run back and cover the man in front).

Hm, I might be making a trip to make some purchases soon, in celebration of the offer...

So I was told by my Mom that our house almost caught fire today.

Apparently, my Grandpa forgot about the boiling pot of soup before heading out for a bit, and by the time he got home (shortly before my Mom and Stepdad came home from work), the pot was all semi-melted and one side of the stovetop was burned.

According to my Mom it smells really bad in the house right now, she's expecting it to be like that for a month or so.

Can't help but think of what we would do if there actually was a fire. I mean, I'm sure we have insurance and all, but I grew up in that house, and now that it was almost taken away from us, I realize how much I love that house. All the memories of my childhood and adolescence were pretty much from the house.

I also believe that God was there tonight, preventing that pot from exploding or the electric wires to catch fire before someone noticed that things were "on phire". Whether you believe that or not is a different matter, and I'm not trying to prove anything or convince anyone with this.

But I just gotta thank the Lord for watching over my family and I.

(Hopefully more happy stuff later this week, like me landing a job)

Whew! Almost been a week since I updated, that's due to a combination of things, such as:
1) Last week I had a Stat Quiz on Thursday and 2 job interviews on Friday
2) I hardly update over the weekend, too busy playing games with you guys
3) I had 3 interviews today and 2 tomorrow (hence the "almost over part"), as well as a midterm tomorrow. Oh, and there was the Stanley Cup game 7 last night (sigh...)

Anyway, that above "explanation" pretty much sums up by happenings last week or so, school, study, interviews, games, more school, more interviews (which is a good thing, hopefully I don't need to go to continuous this term =P ), and more studying.

The GameFAQs Spring Contest has drawn to a close, and I must say that SSBM did very well, losing to the eventual champion of the contest, FF 7. My bracket finished with 125 points, which isn't bad, considering I did most of the "close to call" matches purely on personal preference, since I couldn't win the prize anyway. Nice to see Chrono Trigger get some recognition on the site, after 2 heart-breakers against Mario in the Summer (Character) Contest, CT sliced through 3 Mario games (Mario RPG, SMW, Mario 3) before falling to FF 7 in the finals. So basically the Spring Contest results read Cloud + Sephiroth > Link, which makes sense, as Link is probably only marginally more popular than Cloud or Sephy in a 1 on 1. The Summer Contest will start up again soon, nominations probably in a couple weeks. I'm going to nominate Trogdor the Burninator =P (Flash games count, right?)

After the sad loss of the Calgary Flames last night, a bunch of us guys from CCF proceeded to have a Counter Strike LAN party to make up for our depressed state. Nothing to get you back on your festive side like shooting some holes into your buddies, he he. I totally suck at CS and any FPS for that matter, but I still had lots of fun. Highlights goes to Simon continually flashbanging his own teammates and eventually killed one or two (by accident, after their team has won, lol) His teammates changed their names to "CanWeTradeSimon", "NoSimon", "TakeSimonAway", etc, lol...I got home around 5am today, and had a group interview at 8:30am. I wasn't late though =P

Eh, guess should start studying for that midterm tomorrow or something. Might watch the Lakers game though...

A more entertaining blog entry to lighten up the mood, I guess...

A couple weeks ago I went over to DB's for games and such. That was on a Friday after my SoA exam, so I was ready to play stuff.

But because I was so prompted to go back to 'sauga, I skipped lunch and just drove back. And so, I was pretty hungry when I got to DB's. Conveniently the frozen fish sticks that I brought over maybe 5 weeks ago were still there, but I was hungry, and didn't want to wait the 30 minutes that the fish sticks needed in the oven. So I opted the "university" way out, nuking it in the microwave.

Boy, did that backfire.

I had set the microwave on for 7 minutes at like 70% or 80% power, since the fish sticks normally would take like, 25 minutes in the oven at 400 degrees F. I thought it was a good time to start, so I continued talking w/ Duy, Bao and David. About 5 and a half minutes later, I went to check on the status of the fish sticks, and saw nothing but smoke in the microwave. Not good. So I immediately stopped the microwave, and opened the door to a nice burnt smell and chocking white smoke.

My initial reaction: "Ahhh! Ahhh! Quick, open some windows!"

Well, the fish sticks were totally blackened on the outside, they were probably ice cold on the inside as well. The whole ordeal cost DB's family a plate, and about an hour's time of a burnt smell in the kitchen. Man, I was feeling kinda stupid after that.

In a related story, Paul and Chris currently have a very interesting microwave. That is, it doesn't start when you press start. It stops like, 1/2 second in. To make it work, you have to press the door opening button halfway in, holding it for 2, 3 seconds to get the microwave "jump started". Very interesting indeed. I mean, who makes a microwave that starts when the door is about to be opened? =P